The Alpha Prime and the Omega
by ReformedWriter
Summary: One of the people she shoved aside reacted too loudly, and the commotion caused him to turn around revealing his face again and confirming what she knew to be true, Ted Faro was in Meridian.


Aloy was bargaining with a merchant in Meridian when she saw him, it was only for a moment, but she was sure it was him, she would know that face anywhere. "Where are you going," the merchant cried out after her. "Fine, fine I drop the price by ten shards, but anymore than that and you'll be taking the food from my children's mouths."

"You don't have kids," Aloy called over her shoulder.

She shoved her way through the crowd, able to keep only the slightest glimpses of him in her vision. The sleeve of his armor, the back of his head, the legs. He was clearly in a hurry, but he also had no idea that Aloy was following him. She gained steadily, a mere ten feet away when he finally noticed her.

One of the people she shoved aside reacted too loudly, and the commotion caused him to turn around revealing his face again and confirming what she knew to be true, Ted Faro was in Meridian.

His eyes immediately went to the Carja noble who was still yelling at Aloy, then turned toward the red head. When their eyes locked the world seemed to stand still, anger boiled in her chest overtaking rage and even logic: this wasn't just an enemy it was the enemy.

Aloy drew her staff in a fluid motion, as gracefully as a Glinthawks soaring through the sky, and charged. Faro turned on his heel and ran at full sprint in the opposite direction.

"Get out of the way, get out of the way," Aloy screamed pushing people to the ground to get them out of the way. "Stop him!"

The distance between them was less than ten feet, but the crowd kept them separated better than even a border wall could, and slowly but surely the distance grew until he was able to round a corner out of her view.

Aloy swung around the building mere moments later, but he was already gone, lost in the hundreds of people that infested Meridian. "Damn it all," she swore scanning the crowd fruitlessly. She tapped her focus and the world lit up in light and colors, his footprints were below her, but the trail was mangled by hundreds of people moving through the crowd.

She heart was pounding loudly in her chest, she was angry, but that anger wouldn't help her now. It wasn't what Rost had taught her; she closed her eyes and took a deep breath: even if she couldn't find him, she wasn't alone, she had allies in Meridian. Allies that would raise armies at a word from her. "I need Avad and Erend."

The guards at the sun palace waved her through as soon as they realized who she was, neither wishing to earn her or the Sun King's ire.

Aloy took the steps two at a time, her face so serious that not even the Carja nobles dared to interrupt her with their usual nonsense. "Avad we need to talk," Aloy said.

"Aloy it's always good to see an old friend, but perhaps this can wait until later when I am not entertaining an esteemed member of the court." Avad gestured toward a dark-skinned man, muscular and extremely short.

"It can't Avad, it's too important." While Avad had grown used to Aloy's casual disregard for the Sun Court's protocol, and even found it charming on occasion to see Carja nobles put in their place this particular noble was in possession of an incredibly valuable resource. Despite this when he saw how solemn the expression Aloy wore was, he waved away the man.

"We will continue this conversation later, Giro, please enjoy the company of my most trusted advisors in the meanwhile." Giro glared at Aloy, who glared back, but nonetheless left with a guard escort. "What is it?"

"There's someone in the city Avad, a man, he's dangerous. You need to close every gate and stop the elevators, we can't let him get away.

"Aloy surely you can't be serious. An action like that will disrupt trade, anger the merchants, the nobles, and citizens alike, no man can be worth all this."

He couldn't understand, how could he understand. The world was a thousand times more vast and complex than he understood, and she wasn't qualified to explain any of it to him. "Do you remember when the machines stormed Meridian?"

Of course he did, no one forgot something like that, it was a siege like no other. It was a day of fear when smoke, blood, and fire choked the air making it impossible to breathe. It was a day of rapture when the machines dropped to the ground, defeated in the most glorious battle ever seen by the Carja. It was a day of mourning when the bodies were counted and stacked into mass graves as there weren't enough people left to dig individual ones. "Yes," he finally responded.

"This man made the machines."

…

"I'll close the gates, and send a messenger to Erend."

"Don't bother, he's my next stop. I just need a stamped order to make sure he understands how important this is."

"You'll have it Aloy, that and anything else you might need."

A few minutes later she had a stamped royal order in her hand, and she was running out of the Sun Palace, royal guards slamming the gates shut behind her to ensure the safety of the king.

Erend wasn't in the guard's bunks, instead he was right outside overseeing the training of a dozen new recruits. She didn't say a word, only handed him the note which he scanned over quickly. He had been practicing his reading since the last time they had met.

"Aloy is this serious?"

"Deadly serious." His brow furrowed as he racked his mind, listing off the guards he had under his commands and the entrances to the city: the main ones he knew about and the ones that the criminals thought the guard didn't know about.

He turned towards his new recruits who were watching the two fellow veterans' interactions somewhat worriedly. "Alright you bunch of rat chuffs, today's the day you all earn your uniforms. Shut down every gate, every smuggling tunnel, I want this city locked down so tight that not even a rabbit's fart can escape. Aloy, tell them who they're looking for."

"You're looking for a man, dark hair, square jaw, dark eyes, tanned skin, thin but muscular, his armor was the color of dust and clay."

"What style: Carja, Nora, bandits, Oseram, Shadow Carja," Olin asked.

"None, this armor isn't like anything I've ever seen before, it'll stick out, so he'll probably be covering up with a cloak. Anyone with a hood should be checked." Aloy thought back to the encounter, but she had barely seen him and it was mostly from the back.

"Captain Erend, is this Nora part of the chain of command," one of the women in the line asked. Her words were full of disgust and condescension.

"Well recruit, since the chain of command is so important to you, consider Aloy Captain of getting shit done. Anyone caught disobeying her orders is going to answer to me, and believe me when I say you don't want to get on my bad side." Erend practically snarled out the words and the woman looked down at her feet to avoid his glare. "You have your orders; get out there and shut down the gates. Once that's done, we search the city. Dismissed."

The dozen guards in line split off into groups of two moving methodically to each gate, the crowds parting around them. "They seem like good people Erend," Aloy said, choosing to not let one bad apple ruin her opinion of the bunch.

"Yeah, I'm proud of them, but don't let them hear it. They'll slack off." Erend watched them leave and noted which ones he thought weren't moving fast enough, before he gestured towards the door to the Vanguard building. "Now do you want to explain to me how the man responsible for all the machines is in Meridian?"

"That's a long story," Aloy said lamely.

"Well we have time while the Vanguard closes down the city, let's hear it." Aloy entered the building behind him and sat down at the table within, allowing him to pour her a cup of water.

racking her mind to try and think of an explanation. Now that she finally had a moment to slow down and think about it she realized something, Ted Faro couldn't be alive and living in Meridian, he had to have been long dead for hundreds of years. Whoever this man was, he was to Ted Faro what Aloy was to Elisabet, but if anything that made him more dangerous. The secrets of the entire world were open to him just as they were open to her and she had no idea what he would do with them. "Do you know the stories that the Nora tell about me?" Erend nodded, one couldn't go into Nora lands without hearing the proud Nora boast about Aloy the Anointed, the one who drove back the machines. Born not from any hunter, but crafted by the goddess they called the All Mother to fight the Metal Devil that invaded the lands. "He's like me Erend, but the All Mother didn't craft him," she paused thinking. "Hades, the metal devil did."

"I thought the metal devil was dead, I thought we put him down when he invaded Meridian."

"Hades would have crafted him years ago Erend, maybe as a precaution. To be revived if anyone ever managed to take him down."

Erend nodded sagely, contemplating the words and their implications. "Aloy, are you saying you were really crafted by a goddess?"

Aloy hated when people made that assumption, she hated that she had all this information others couldn't understand, she hated that telling anyone would risk their very sanity, so like always she brushed aside the question and redirected. "It's more complicated than that Erend, but what's important is that we get this man before he escapes."

"Agreed," Erend said. "They'll have the gates closed soon, in the meantime there's an artist that members of the Carja are fond of. He might be able to get us a picture of this man, if you think you can describe him well enough.

"Let's go see him." They stood from the table and marched through the city.

The feeling of the city changed dramatically in their short walk over to the house of the artist: people shut the doors to their homes, the merchants packed up their stalls and hid the carts, members of the hunter's lodge sharpened their arrows in anticipation of what was coming.

As the sun set behind the cliffs the fear further permeated the city, guards began pounding on doors demanding to be allowed inside to search. While Aloy would have loved to be out with the guards searching for Faro she instead waited with Erend examining each man brought by the Vanguard, shaking her head when she realized they were not who they were looking for.

This continued late into the night, dozens of men and even some women were brought before Aloy, but none of them were Faro.

Dawn was just beginning to break over the horizon when one of the senior members of the Vanguard approached them. "Captain Erend, the men have been searching the city top to bottom, the man you are looking for is nowhere to be found."

"Look again, and start from the beginning," Erend ordered. The man gave a curt nod before ordering the others to follow him to the other end of the city. "We can't keep this city locked down forever Aloy, if we don't find him soon the king will be forced to open up the city."

"And he'll definitely escape, if he hasn't already."

"I don't think he has Aloy. If a man like that came into the city he came to get something, something important. From the sounds of it you interrupted him before he could get it; I doubt he would have left without it."

"And there's no way he could have gotten what he needed and escaped the city before the Vanguard shut it down." The logic was sound and Aloy was more sure than ever that he was still in the city. "of course this all depends on how well you've shut down the city."

Erend gave her a glance out of the corner of his eye. "I know this city like the back of my hand, if there's so much as a hole in the wall one of my Vanguard is there sticking their finger in."

Aloy gave a nod of approval at her friend, he had come a long way from the drunk she had met less than two years ago. "I'm proud of you Erend," she said with a smile.

"I'm proud of me too." Erend ended his sentence with a yawn. "Sorry it's been a long night."

Aloy, about to respond, was cut off by a yawn of her own, powerful enough to bring tears to the corners of her eye. Just as she was about to respond, she was once again cut off, this time by a large explosion. "What the hell was that?"

"It came from the palace." They turned toward the source of the noise and saw a pillar of billowy black smoke rise from the ground. "He's attacking the Sun King."

"That doesn't make any sense, he's by himself in a city full of hostile guards." Aloy's mind raced through the possibilities, why would he want to draw any attention to himself. He wouldn't. "It's a distraction, he's trying to pull the Vanguard away from the entrances so he can get away. We have to get to the bridge, he'll try to escape with the running crowds."

"Aloy, the Vanguard has a duty to protect the Sun King above all, I can't take the chance that you're wrong."

"When have I ever been wrong," Aloy demanded.

"I cannot abandon my duty," Erend insisted. "Go the main gates, see if you can't spot him in the evacuation, but the guards will be busy protecting against further attacks." With those words he ran off in the direction of the palace, calling out to others to join him.

"Damn it," Aloy took off in the exact opposite direction, the citizens of Meridian joining her one by one as they stumbled out of their homes, awoken by the blast.

Soon there was a crowd of people in front and behind her, all of them were desperate to get away, the memory of the siege that had taken place less than two years ago motivating them to move as fast as they could. The wall of people in front of her stopped without warning, and she careened into them, those behind her doing the same.

Realizing she was never going to find Faro from this position Aloy scanned her surroundings, and quickly found a path inaccessible to the rest of the crowd: the rooftops. Through sheer force of will she elbowed and pushed her way to the edge of the crowd, taking a deep breath once she was free of the moving throng.

With no time to waste she grabbed a hold of one of the purchases of the building and began climbing it, hand over foot. Once she was about thirty feet above the crowd she tapped on her focus and scanned below for her quarry.

The focus couldn't identify faces, but it quickly differentiated the crowd based on the styles and colors of their armor eliminating the obvious and highlighting anything unusual. Within a minute she found him hidden in the crowd, unusually calm among the panicking people, most likely because he knew that there was no attack just a loud explosion.

"I've got you Faro," she whispered to herself. She took off thirty feet above the ground, practically sprinting across the roof tops. To anyone who looked it would have seemed as though Aloy was flying with the speed and fluidity with which she found purchases only to leap from them less than a moment later. A lesser hunter would have fallen and broken their neck, but Aloy had climbed and trained on icy mountains while being attacked by machines most never even knew existed; compared to that the roof tops of Meridian were as easy to cross as the city's bridge.

She stopped about fifty feet in front of Faro and scrambled down the buildings until she was only ten feet off the ground, she was poised waiting for him as many Stalkers had waited for her.

A few minutes later he was directly underneath her, she drew her staff and leapt from her hiding place, intent on knocking him out and more if he resisted. He dropped underneath her like a sack of stones, the crowd parting around them, but not stopping. Aloy quickly stood up and placed the heel of her shoe on his throat, and her staff an inch from his eye for good measure. "Move and you're a dead man, understand?"

"Yes," he managed to choke out.

She shuddered, even his voice was the same, it gave her the same feeling as watching the holograms of Elisabet did, like she was watching a spirit. "Why are you here Faro?"

"Not Faro," he spluttered. "I am Auto."

"It doesn't matter what you want to call yourself Faro, you're a threat, and I'm turning you over to the Vanguard." Aloy pressed down harder with her boot waiting patiently for the lack of air to knock him unconscious.

Auto was in pain, quite a bit of it, but he couldn't let himself be taken here, there would be a time for that but this wasn't it. Still he had less than a minute before he would pass out, and he knew there was little chance he could take this red head in a fight. "Lightkeeper protocol," he said with the last bit of air in his lungs.

"What, how do you know about that?" Aloy pulled the spear back and lightened the pressure on his neck.

With a motion almost as fluid as Aloy's staff unsheathing Auto pulled a small disc shaped device from his pocket, and pressed the top. It let out an ear-splitting shriek that caused everyone in the immediate area, Aloy included, to drop to the ground clutching their skulls in pain.

The sound faded after a few minutes, and Aloy stood, activating her Focus immediately. He was gone, but Aloy had drawn blood in her tackle from the building, and he was dripping it, leaving a trail right to him. "You're not getting away." She hustled forward through the crowd, parting them with large screaming and larger anger.

They were on the other side of the bridge by the time Aloy finally caught sight of him, a hundred yards ahead of him, his arm dripping blood. She redoubled her efforts tearing across the field toward him; her focus singular in her intent.

He saw her soon after she started her charge, and he began sprinting as well. He made it to the tree line and Aloy lost sight of him, by the time she made it there he was gone just like before.

Unlike before however, he left a glaring amount of evidence.

A small clearing full of broken branches and crushed grass, it was about twenty feet across, almost perfectly circular. There were four more divots farther outside the circle, these each two feet in diameter. It was clear to her, he was riding a machine, and based on the size of the footprints and the clearing it was a large one.

It also must have been incredibly fast based on the fact that it was no longer anywhere in sight, but it left behind an easy to follow trail, and that's all she needed to find him.


End file.
